


Three Hunts in the Shadow of Delphi

by SemperIntrepida



Series: Elegiad [6]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Canon Playthrough, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, sex without feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SemperIntrepida/pseuds/SemperIntrepida
Summary: In which Kassandra hunts for a pirate captain's missing ship, a husband's lost libido, and the man who is trying to kill her.
Series: Elegiad [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531004
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	Three Hunts in the Shadow of Delphi

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is part of a linked series of stories, and while you don't have to read them all, they do combine into a unified narrative.

The ship lay broken against the rocks, the cracked shell of its hull exposed to the surf while its tangled rigging and torn sails flapped in the breeze. There were people climbing all over the wreckage, tossing bags and boxes onto the wet sand below, and they froze and stared at Kassandra as they noticed her approach. Judging by the rough homespun fabric of their clothes, they were merely villagers from a nearby settlement taking advantage of the luck that had dropped a loaded ship into their laps.

At the tideline, a man stacked boxes onto a pile as a woman and a small boy scurried between him and the wreckage, their arms loaded with goods. The woman noticed Kassandra first, and she whistled a warning to the man, who whirled around to face this incoming stranger.

His eyes flicked from Kassandra's face, down her armor, and then to her weapons, and he looked over nervously at the woman who was probably his wife. She watched Kassandra warily and pulled the boy behind her.

Kassandra held her hands open. "I'm not here for trouble," she said. "I just want to know where the figurehead of this ship went."

His head jerked in the direction of the bay behind him. "Somewhere out there, along with the crew."

"Do you know what ship this is?"

"No idea. They blew in here in a hurry and ran aground in the shallows. Most of it's out in the bay except for the stern here. But if it's treasure you're after, you're too late. Those soldiers dragged it all up to their camp." He looked up the hill behind Kassandra, where a fortified encampment of Athenian soldiers stood overlooking the water.

Kassandra wasn't here for treasure, though that would have been a bonus. She was looking for a particular ship, the Shark's Tooth. Its captain, Gelon, had asked Kassandra to find it along with her missing lover Gyke, Gelon's second-in-command. And once Kassandra found both ship and Gyke, Captain Gelon would pay her in information more precious than jewels and drachmae.

"I need to get to that wreckage."

"You're mad if you think you're going to swim out there. You'll end up food for the sharks like these poor bastards did."

The villagers had pulled their boats high onto the beach. She nodded at the nearest. "I'll give you coin if you let me borrow that felucca."

The man glanced at his wife, who gave him a quick nod. "All right, but you pay up front."

A short time later, Kassandra was knee-deep in the surf, pulling the felucca behind her into the shallows. The water was warm, and the white sand below gave it the color of a summer sky. On most days it would have been beautiful, but most days didn't involve a dismembered leg floating in the waves, or the sticky-sweet scent of blood in the salty mist.

She hopped up on the felucca's deck and poled the boat out to deeper water. Matted coils of rope, broken planks, and other debris bobbed gently on the waves, along with a growing number of human arms, legs, and torsos. Kassandra had seen blood and horror, but never anything like this: the sea like a butcher's soup. She fought down a queasy churn in her stomach as she guided the boat into the center of the floating patch of bodies. She couldn't see what lurked in the depths below. The water was too deep for the sun's light to reach the bottom.

It meant she'd have to go for a swim, against all reason and sense, for the Shark's Tooth and Captain Gelon were the only leads she had in finding Elpenor, the man who'd already tried to kill her once, and was bound to keep trying until he succeeded.

She gritted her teeth and reached for the first of the leather ties that secured her armor. It had to come off — breastplate, greaves, and bracers made of iron and bronze, all of it far too heavy to swim in. She stripped down to her underclothes, took a deep breath, and stepped off the side of the deck before she had a chance to think any second thoughts.

Thankfully, her tendency to sink like a stone in water quickly pulled her below the carnage floating at the surface. Shadowy forms too smooth to be rocks loomed in the darkness below, and she swam towards them as the pressure grew in her ears and the burn crept into her lungs. There: the unmistakable curve of a ship's bow. She rolled to her left and finned her free hand so she'd follow it around to the very fore of the ship. Her eyes began to adjust to the watery gloom, and then she saw it, a figurehead of a large shark, its mouth open in a toothy grin. This _was_ the wreckage of the Shark's Tooth after all.

A dark line of shadow snaked across the figurehead and the bow. Her heart beat faster. She looked up just in time to twist out of the way of the lunging maw of a real live shark. Her back slammed into the ship's keel, the barnacle-encrusted surface slicing into her skin. She let herself sink, following the bow's wooden curve down into the darkness. Her lungs were burning. _Fuck._

The shark swimming overhead was massive, dwarfing the one on the figurehead. She'd never outrace that monster to the surface, and there was fresh blood in the water now.

_Think, Kassandra._ She swam in the murk along the seabed, trailing a hand along the sand, looking for a sharp rock or a piece of wood, anything, when her fingers touched something cool and soft. She gave it a tug and her heart seized in her chest as the arm came free of the body it belonged to and she realized exactly what she was holding. And there, around its wrist, was a flash of gold and green stones. Could this be the bracelet Gelon had mentioned she'd given to Gyke? Apparently the second-in-command had gone down with the ship.

Kassandra was running out of air, and with it, time. She pulled the bracelet free and kicked upwards, saw the graceful, deadly glide of the shark overhead, let it pass by on its circular path, then kicked upwards again so she and the shark swam at roughly the same depth. It turned, spotted her, opened that great and terrifying array of teeth, and she somehow held her nerve as it swam closer and closer, and at the very last moment she surged out of its way and slammed her fist straight into its eye. Its entire body thrashed in surprise, creating a wave that pushed her away, and she kicked hard, fighting panic and a _right now_ desperation for air as her blood pounded behind her eyes.

She broke the surface, took one great breath of blessed air, and swam for the felucca floating several body lengths away. Then she was lifting herself onto the deck, and she lay there on her back for a very long time, gasping for breath. When the fire in her lungs finally subsided, she looked down, saw the reddish tint in the seawater drying on her skin as she remembered Gyke's arm in her grasp — and then she rolled over and vomited into the sea.

.oOo.

Gelon surprised Kassandra by taking the bad news like a Stoic would, uttering a quiet, lamented "Oh, my Gyke..." before she shook her head and set her hardened mask back into place. She shed no tears as Kassandra handed her Gyke's bracelet. Instead, she sighed wearily and said, "I suppose I'm not much of a captain," as she slid the bracelet around her wrist. "Can't be a captain without a ship."

"I can help tide you over," Kassandra said. "But give me the information you promised me first."

Gelon glanced around, then gestured for Kassandra to follow her further up the beach, away from any unfriendly ears. "You're looking for Elpenor, right?" she said.

"Yes."

"That fucker's a snake. But unlike most snakes he's got a lot of friends. That's why no one here will talk to you. They're all afraid." Gelon uncrossed her arms and pointed at herself. "Lucky for you, I don't give two shits about him or this place."

"You know where he's hiding?"

"Nope. But I know someone who might. Her name's Auxesia."

"Go on."

"Sex-crazy, she is. She's probably fucked half of Phokis, but imagine the pillow talk she's heard..."

Loose hips made loose lips. "Indeed," Kassandra said drily.

"She's not usually one to kiss and tell, but if you help her somehow, you might get her to talk."

"Help her somehow?"

Gelon looked Kassandra up and down pointedly. "You're fucking hot. I'm sure you can figure out how to work with that."

Kassandra rolled her eyes. "If I must."

"I'll introduce you to her."

"Good."

"I gotta warn you, though. She's like a hundred years old."

.oOo.

Auxesia wasn't exactly a hundred years old, but she _was_ old enough to be Kassandra's grandmother. It made for an amusingly awkward conversation where Kassandra got to hear all about an old woman's voracious sexual appetites while being openly ogled at the same time. It turned out Auxesia had plenty of drachmae and libido — and a husband who couldn't keep up. Might Kassandra help her find the ingredients she needed to make a potion to give him back his youthful stamina?

Kassandra never would have expected that finding a deer's tongue and a bear's scrotum would put her one step closer to finding Elpenor. The world moved in strange ways.

.oOo.

Kassandra sat high in the fork of a tree on the upper reaches of Mount Parnassos, where the stags had gathered to wage war amongst themselves for the best of the hinds. Their roaring calls echoed off the shoulders of the mountain, carried on an autumn breeze as crisp as frost on fallen leaves, and she could see them coming down the ridge line and up the river gulch individually and in contentious pairs, antlers already clashing, none of them the stag she wanted.

She leaned back against the tree trunk, the old oak's bark digging into the tender spots on her back she'd earned during her swim a few days ago. Her armor and sword were back on the Adrestia where she'd left them, prioritizing speed and silence over protection. And now, dressed as she was in just her chiton, armed with nothing else but her bow and broken spear, it was like she was back in Kephallonia, hunting deer to keep herself and Phoibe from starving.

But today she hunted no ordinary deer — only the oldest and most clever of the stags that lived in these mountains. The hunters in Delphi called him the Alpha, or First, and they said his antlers were as wide as a man's outstretched arms. No man would ever be able to track the Alpha Stag, they said, but Kassandra was no man, and she had something no other hunter did: her golden eagle Ikaros, who was just as adept at hunting big game as he was at hunting small.

Ikaros had led her here, and it was Ikaros she depended on now, as he flew somewhere above, his keen eyes searching for their quarry.

She sighed and idly drew her spear, studying the pitted metal surface of its blade while trying not to fidget. All this sitting around allowed her mind to wander back to places she'd rather it didn't go.

Just when she resigned herself to experiencing unwanted memories, she heard Ikaros's hunting call sound over the ridge. If that's where the Alpha Stag was, then she'd have to move to keep herself downwind of him as he approached. One breath of human scent and he'd flee, ending her chase in failure. She swung her leg over the branch and climbed down the trunk.

Her path cut an angle further up the mountain, and she shivered as the wind blew into her face. The chill didn't last long as she climbed up the steep hillside, the long muscles in her legs warming up after sitting still for so long. Ikaros called again, closer this time. The king was on his way.

He was far too canny to stand in silhouette against the treeless ridgeline, instead choosing to pass through a small copse of dwarf pines that clung to the ridge, their gnarled trunks twisted from years of battering by bitter winds. She knelt behind the trunk of a grand old oak and readied her bow with an arrow nocked. From here she had a clear view of the pines. The snap and clatter of breaking branches told her something big was approaching.

Kassandra's breath caught when the Alpha Stag finally emerged into open ground. He was easily the largest deer she had ever seen, his antlers spreading into a regal fan of points above his head. A crown worthy of his majesty.

Her bow hand did not move. The idea of killing this beautiful animal gave her no pleasure, nor did the possibility of inadvertently raising the ire of Artemis herself, whose punishments were swift and cruel. She had hunted before, when the stakes were kill or go hungry, and not a single scrap of those animals had gone to waste. But what now, when the priestesses in the Temple of Artemis had promised her a bear's scrotum in exchange for the antlers of the Alpha Stag...

Elpenor was out there somewhere, waiting for another chance to orchestrate an attempt on her life. It was kill or be killed. She raised her bow and lined up the shot, aiming just behind the crease of his shoulder where his heart beat and his lungs drew breath.

_Forgive me_, she thought, and let the arrow fly.

.oOo.

The priestesses of Artemis had accepted her offering of the Alpha Stag's antlers along with as much usable meat as she could carry. Bringing it all down from the mountain had been an arduous and bloody ordeal, but after everything was said and done, she had the ingredients she needed for Auxesia's potion.

Auxesia's husband Koragos was not particularly happy to see Kassandra when she arrived at their home, and he figured out the purpose of her visit the moment she handed the fetid-smelling package of ingredients to his wife.

"Oh no! We've already discussed this, Auxesia!" he said, backing away slowly. "I can't satisfy you anymore. You're going to kill me with your lust."

"Nonsense. I'm going to make you an elixir that will give you the vigor of a man a fraction of your age."

Koragos's voice pitched higher in desperation. "Gods save me. I can't do this anymore."

Kassandra held up a hand. "Enough," she said. She turned to Auxesia. "Your husband doesn't want this, and I'll not be a party to forcing him."

He looked at her with gratitude while Auxesia began to protest, "But—"

Kassandra cut her off. "No more potions. _I'll_ satisfy your hunger instead." While taking Auxesia to bed was not something she would have considered in normal circumstances, what harm could there be? Maybe an older lover would teach her a thing or two — or several.

Auxesia recovered quickly from her surprise. "Very well, let's see what you're made of, misthios." She took Kassandra by the hand and led her inside the house, to a chamber lit by oil lamps with their wicks trimmed low. Even in the dim light Kassandra could see that the bed was richly dressed in silk and linen, and that the furnishings in the room were simple and elegant. A table holding jugs of water and wine stood next to the bed, along with a large basin of water. This room was clearly a place where Auxesia enjoyed spending her time.

And Auxesia was a gracious host, offering Kassandra a cup of wine while she removed her bow and her swordbelt and began to work on the ties that fastened her armor. She surprised herself by declining the drink. Her heartbeat had sped up and her neck and shoulders were suddenly stiff with tension. She had no idea how this was going to play out.

However, once Auxesia's clothes came off, it was apparent that though her hair had gone to grey and her skin held more wrinkles, she was still a woman, with the same parts and hidden mysteries as all the other women Kassandra had ever slept with before. Kassandra smiled at her misplaced apprehension.

"Something funny, misthios?"

"Just the foolishness of youth."

"Youth I'd like to see revealed. Now hurry!"

Kassandra slipped out of her chiton and underclothes and stood by the bed in full glory.

Auxesia took her in, smiling in delight. "Well, aren't you magnificent!"

It was always nice to be appreciated, and once their bodies met, age ceased to matter all that much. Auxesia was surprisingly strong and limber, and any worries Kassandra had about needing to be gentle were quickly dispelled.

Auxesia knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how to tell Kassandra to give it to her. Fingers, tongue, thigh, palm of hand: Kassandra used them all and more, as Auxesia came and came and Kassandra's own pleasure grew, in the giving and in the forgetting of the past and the future. There was no grand meaning to be found here, just two women sharing a moment, or in this case, a great many moments as the sun set and the night spun its wheel overhead and the dawn broke through and turned into day.

How long could they go before someone got tired — that became their game, and Kassandra was well served by her peerless stamina. All that running and sword swinging was paying off.

Finally, finally, Auxesia threw herself back against the pillows of her bed, saying, "By the gods, I'm done! No more."

"Are you sure?" Kassandra teased, drawing out her words as she slipped her hand between sweat-slicked thighs.

"Yes! No! Stop!" Auxesia said between gasps. "Now I know how it is to be ravished by a god."

Kassandra laughed, low and rich with satisfaction.

A short while later, Kassandra was mostly dressed as they shared a cup of wine between them, Kassandra sitting on the edge of the bed as Auxesia lounged languidly within her silks.

"I doubt you're in Delphi to pleasure old women in need, misthios. Tell me why you're really here."

"Have you heard of a man named Elpenor?"

Auxesia narrowed her eyes and set the cup down on the table. "That's a dangerous name."

"I'm a dangerous person."

"A lover _and_ a fighter," Auxesia mused. She studied Kassandra, considering how much she would say, and then she mentioned a handful of places where a snake might make a hidden lair, if one were looking for such a thing.

Auxesia had given Kassandra exactly what she needed.

.oOo.

One by one, Kassandra crossed locations off of Auxesia's list, scouting caves and tombs and villas across Phokis. To her frustration, it appeared that Elpenor had hidden himself in plain sight all along, in one of the many ruined temples within the Valley of the Snake. The damned thing even had an enormous skeleton of a snake wrapped around it.

For most of a day she'd watched the comings and goings of the guards and servants from a hidden crevice in the cliffs that stood above the ruins. From their movements, it was obvious that there was someone of wealth living in the caves under the temple; she could see it in the number of guards posted at the perimeter and in the goods the servants delivered throughout the day: amphorae of Athenian wine, baskets of fruit and other delicacies. The master they served had expensive tastes, and Elpenor seemed the kind of man who expected luxury to follow him wherever he went.

She waited long past sunset, until the servants were sent home and only guards remained. At least she'd be helped by a moonless night.

The cornice she crouched upon was a perfect place to spy upon the ruins, made even more so by the long, thin crack that ran alongside it down the face of the cliff. She stuck her left hand inside the crack, twisted it until her fist jammed into a solid hold, then swung her feet off into space. For a few dizzying moments her life dangled by a single handhold, until her toes found solid footing against the stone below. Then she jammed her right hand inside the crack at a point just above her waistline, and began the long climb down.

By the time her sandals sank into the grass at the foot of the cliff, she was sweating lightly, and as she ducked out of sight between two boulders, a frisson of anticipation slid up her spine. The nearest guard, like all the others, stood with his sightlines facing out towards the river and the road. They'd forgotten that danger could come from within.

She pulled a length of black linen out from under her armor and looped it into a hood that shrouded her hair and face. She drew her broken spear. Then she moved like a gust of wind, enveloping the guard from behind and wrapping an arm around his chest, the blade of her spear resting against his throat.

"Leave here and take the others with you if you value your life," she said.

He apparently didn't, for he took a deep breath and tried to shout a warning instead. She cut his throat and let his air wheeze quietly into the night. These were no ordinary hired thugs, loyal only to themselves and fleeing at the first opportunity.

She quietly lowered the guard's body to the ground while her heartbeat surged and her body wrapped itself in a familiar warmth. Her spear hummed in her hand. She spotted four more guards at watch along the edges of the ruins, and one at the entrance to the cave. She'd have to be quick to get them all before they noticed their numbers dwindling.

The temple ruins were a perfect hunting ground. She flowed between dark places shadowed by crumbling marble columns and the twisted skeleton that arched above, and came upon each guard in turn, her spear flashing, leaving silence and blood soaking into the earth as she passed. No one would sound an alarm.

Only two men were left: a sentry walking a line between the temple and the path to the cave entrance, and a guard at the entrance itself.

The sentry's torch blazed in the darkness, and she approached him at an angle, careful not to throw any shadows from the lights behind her. Her spear cut a silver line into the night, and he died silently like the rest, his body folding to the ground as she eased him down. Then she picked up his fallen torch and walked boldly up the path to the entrance of the cave where the final guard waited.

"Hey! Wh—"

She hurled her torch at him and rushed him at a full run, and in the margins of his distraction she ran him through with her spear as if he weren't wearing armor at all. The Spear of Leonidas seemed to be growing ever more powerful, its keen edge now punching through armor that would turn aside nearly any other blade. Even now it seemed to pulse in her hand.

She turned and faced the mouth of the cave, pulling her shroud off her head as she stepped inside. Elpenor would know who killed him.

The upper tunnel was barely wider than the span of her arms, but it was well lit with candles and oil lamps. She could see its lower section opening up into a larger chamber.

She found Elpenor seated at a writing desk in the chamber's center. He did not seem surprised to see her.

"What a shame," he said, eyeing the spear in her hand. "We would have made you rich." His left hand curled around something in his lap.

She let him throw the blade, tilting her head at the last moment to let it fly past. "I'm going to enjoy killing you," she said.

He leapt to his feet and drew a short dagger from his belt. Instinct told her his blade was poisoned. It left no room for mistakes, and when she struck, her hands could not waver. A thread of memory loosened within her, and she heard her mother's voice. _Hesitation hastens the grave..._

The tight quarters of the chamber only added to the danger, and she backpedaled, trying to draw him out. She watched his hips and kept her spear at the ready, and when he shifted his weight to his back leg, she let him strike, neatly sidestepping his blade while grabbing his knife arm and twisting it upwards. She slammed her spear deep into his side, just under his ribcage, and then she stabbed him a second time for good measure.

His legs turned to water and he sank to the ground. She followed him down, keeping a tight grip on his arm, then slammed his knife hand into the rocky floor until he let go of the blade. A flick of her spear sent it skittering out of reach.

The pool of blood under him grew as he bled out, and he clutched uselessly at his side. "Killing me is a mistake."

"Trusting you was a mistake."

He smiled, showing bloody teeth. "I was the reason you left Kephallonia alive. The Cult wanted you dead."

"What Cult? Where are they?"

She'd get no answer from a dead man. She examined his body anyway, looking for something she might have missed. There, on the ground underneath his waist, was a sliver of a golden... _something_ that had fallen from his belt. Out of curiosity, she poked at it with the point of the Spear of Leonidas, but the moment the spear touched the object's surface, it began to thrum with even more force than it had before, almost as if it were angry. She jerked the spear away reflexively, then reached down and picked up the object with her free hand, wiping Elpenor's blood off on his own robe.

The object was the size of her palm, triangular in shape, and about as thick as a knife blade. It gleamed gold in the lamplight, but was far too lightweight to be real gold, or even bronze. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen, and she realized that it hummed in her fingers the same way her spear did when she held it, like a whispered promise of power.

She tucked it into a pouch on her waistbelt and turned her attention to the rest of the chamber. The scrolls she found amidst the opulent rugs and furnishings detailed routine business deals from Phokis to Krete. Elpenor was certainly well connected, but that was hardly unusual for a merchant during times of war.

Kassandra drifted over to his desk. In an alcove, she found a dark set of robes and a white mask that could have come from any play in any theater from here to Athens. Elpenor _had_ mentioned a love of theater, but there was something about the mask that put her on edge, and she decided to hang on to it and the robes while she figured out where they came from later. The rest of the scrolls in the alcoves were much like the others elsewhere in the chamber, listing ship manifests and accounts due and other transactions, but then she began to sift through the scrolls on top of the desk, and found a scrap of papyrus addressed to no one, written in a neat but delicate hand.

_The situation is under control._  
_Kassandra will be dead soon, and Deimos will find her mother._  
_The Eyes see all._  
_—E_

She crumpled the letter in her fist. Every answer she found only seemed to create more questions. She was certain of only two things: that her mother was in danger, and that Elpenor was part of a much larger conspiracy that plotted against her and her family.

It was time to pay a visit to the Oracle of Delphi.

**Author's Note:**

> My original outline for this story began with the sentence "Kassandra punches a shark." Suffice to say, this story took a few unexpected turns while I was writing it. However, the biggest surprise was actually deciding to write Kassandra's encounter with Auxesia. I never planned on it, but here we are. The game plays this scene as a comedy but I chose to write it with a bit more sensitivity. I have no idea if I succeeded or not.
> 
> As always, I welcome your comments.


End file.
